Talk:Danse Macabre

Bergman

I removed the reference to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh's Seal -- the author states that the danse macabre is the theme of the film, apparently confusing the dance at the film's end with both danse macabre and the whole film's theme. The removed reference was:

"danse macabre was the theme of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal, a movie where a knight plays chess with Death."

–Boy, someone must have REALLY messed with it between me entering it (forgot to sign in on it that time sorry) and you deleting it wouldn't it be easier to just bring it back to the surviving performers watching Death lead the rest of the cast away in a slow danse macabre?—Montanto 00:54, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Inhumanoids

I'm unfamiliar with the Inhumanoids, but the description here doesn't really sound like a Danse Macabre, in that it doesn't have the aspect of showing death as something that happens to those from all stations in life. That is, it's apparently a dance, and it's apparently macabre, but I'm not sure that merits mention here.

By the way, if we are looking for animations that may vaguely relate to this theme, there are a few examples of Max Fleischer's work that might belong, most notably his 1932 cartoon of "Minnie the Moocher". - Jmabel | Talk 05:54, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Musical references

If anyone is interested, Iron Maiden released an album called "Dance of Death," which includes the song "Dance of Death." The lyrics of that song seem to match the description of this Danse Macabre idea... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.95.238.136 (talk • contribs) April 17, 2006.

Performance Group

Does anyone know anything about the 1970s performance group Danse Macabre?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.208.204.166 (talk • contribs) .

It might be useful if you could indicate a country, or anything else you do know about them. - Jmabel | Talk 00:26, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am a member of that (the 1970's performance group) and have been trying to post a footnote in the "MUSIC" section, but someone keeps removing it. We are located in California and perform throught the year at renaissance fairs, festivals, and Day of the Dead celebrations. I am new to Wikipedia, can someone help me understand. Do I need to write my own page about the performance group? We are the modern recreation of the "Danse of Death," we really should be here. Thanks! 3Bandia (talk) 07:26, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I played with the original Danse Macabre group in California for the better part of a decade, and am now the director for the new Danse Macabre troupe at the New York renaissance Faire. Danse Macabre was started by a man named Greg Dana (https://www.facebook.com/greg.dana.73) and originally consisted of just three members, Greg on the ladder xylophone he created after perusing the Hans Holbein woodcuts of the Danse Macabre, one member on triangle, and I beleive--but don't remember for sure--a third on fiddle. It did 'guerilla' performances', popping in and out throughout Faire, and was not an approved performance at first. Immediately popular with the participants and patrons alike, people were soon asking Greg if they could join in. Since the response was so positive, the Faire (somewhat grudgingly) allowed the performance, and at it's peak in the 1980s nearly 50 people might participate in a given performance. Popularity grew outside the Faire, and Danse Macabre was asked to perform at other events, notably the Pumpkin Festival in Half Moon Bay, where it was a fixture for more than a decade. As other Faires were started and people traveled between them, the concept of Danse Macabre traveled too. Now most, if not all, of the largest Faires have Danse Macabre troupes, although each Faire has done it's own interpretation of the performance. Greg's original interpretation was heavily based on the Holbein woodcuts in terms of 'look,' with Death as the musician skeleton escorting off people of all walks of life. Due to the limitations of the ladder xylophone--a diatonic instrument as recreated by Greg Dana--music can only be played in the key of C major or it's relative minor, A minor. Greg decided to limit the performance further to only songs in the minor key. I would love to cite sources on this, but it is a result of personal experience, not research scholarship. I was there when Greg explained how he started Danse Macabre and what he based it upon. I performed with them at both the Northern and Southern California Renaissance Pleasure Faires, the Pumpkin festival, the Castro Street Faire, and also at an event in Nevada City, CA in the early to mid 1980s. An attempt to bring Danse Macabre to the Dickens Christmas Faire, featuring the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come resulted in our being told that if we EVER played the Dickens Faire again, we would be banned from all Living History Centre events.Dauguy (talk) 13:23, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Kennan Wylie

Is there any reason to think the Kennan Wylie piece is of encyclopedic importance? The link to document it is to a marching band score. - 23:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I've allowed nearly a week for a response. Removing. - Jmabel | Talk 05:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Mispelling?

"Ich habe gehabt [vil arbeit gross]"

Shouldn't that be "viel", or was "vil" accepted back then too? I don't seem to find anything else on the internet that says vil, nor any other copies of the lyrics besides what wikipedia and wikipedia-derivatives provide. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Karch (talk • contribs) 26 August 2006.

Don't know, but given that the word is apparently conjectural and the rest of the spelling is not particularly archaic, I'd tend to be with you on this. You might want to go back through the article history, work out who added this, and ask them. - Jmabel | Talk 18:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

That would be me. It's late Middle High German/Early New High German from the 15th Century. It's correct. Teodorico 19:10, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Grateful Dead

Thank you for the reference. The book says it was a "skeleton" and variously speculates about its meaning. So it was not Grateful Dead, it was a smartass reviewer, who when describing a couple of dead bones decided to show-off how smart he is and knows fancy words. Skeletons abound in many place, but to call it "danse macabre", there should be a specific arrangement. A single skeleton is definitely not.

I am very muc sure that Grateful Dead and various Gothic bands place skeleta here and there in heaps. It is only the reference is bad.

See also Skeleton (undead) for another kind of skeleton symbolism. `'mikka 16:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Are we reading the same thing? Quote in full:

Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse collaborated on Grateful Dead (1966) for the Avalon, using a gruesome skeleton [cover art] with its literary illusion to "going to hell" and the medieval motif of the danse macabre.

Personally, it seems pretty obvious from artwork like this, this and this not only draws directly stylistically from danse macabre, I would not be surprised if it is an actual image taken directly from one of the old masters. Indeed the phrase "Dancing skeleton" (or, "danse") is very common in Grateful Dead culture. But that is neither here nor there, the important thing is Verifiability, not truth. You may not agree with something for it to be included in Wikipedia so long as it is from a reliable source. Your certainly welcome to provide a counter-view to the cited source, but I don't think such a view exists. -- Stbalbach 17:08, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record, the original Kelley/Mouse GD poster artwork was "appropriated" from a 1913 English-language translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, illustrated in the Art Nouveau style by Edmund Joseph Sullivan (1869–1933). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Artful Dodger (talk • contribs) 17:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Day of the Dead?

If anyone has ever looked at art relating to day of the dead, you can notice that the art is similar: People from all walks of life portrayed as skeletons designed to mock earthly life and say that death is inevitable. Is there any connection between the two?--Nog64 00:51, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any, though it is likely that modern Day of the Dead imagery would be influenced by historic Danse Macabre imagery. - Jmabel | Talk 22:44, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

The research I have done for danse macabre in Renaissance England seems to indicate that there are three branches of Danse Macabre. 1. The French branch, which was taken to England very early. 2. The German branch which becomes the Totentanz. 3. The Spanish branch, which becomes the Dia de los Muertos. Since I was concentrating on the English version, I have no specific references for the other two branches, but some reliable online resources are https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/13873 and http://www.lamortdanslart.com/danse/dance.htm . Reliable print resources: https://www.amazon.com/Danse-Macabre-Women-Bibliotheque-Nationale/dp/0873384733/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468246977&sr=8-1&keywords=the+danse+macabre+of+women and https://www.amazon.com/Dance-Death-Dover-Fine-History/dp/0486228045/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468247003&sr=8-1&keywords=the+dance+of+death+dover Dauguy (talk) 14:24, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Danse Macabre in Emblematics

Has anyone considered the abundance of of examples of the danse macabre in emblem books from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? It seems this is an area that has been grossly overlooked by an otherwise well-written article. - RBXguy 19:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any sources that discuss this? `'Miikka 21:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Hans Holbein has a book on Project Gutenberg which addresses this very topic: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21790/21790-h/21790-h.htm You might also try your local Rare Book library. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has the second largest collection of emblem books in the world after the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Within each collection are several examples of the Totentanz. Germany, too, has a very impressive collection of such emblem books.

Article title

Are there any serious reasons not to use English-language title? Or, to put it in another way, why pereference to French? `'Miikka 21:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There's no reason to prefer the French over the English in the English Wikipedia. The term "Dance of Death" is common enough in literature and on the internet. — Parsa (talk) 22:36, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Danse Macabre vs. Dance of Death

These need to be disintwined, in particular disambiguation for the latter from the formner. Robert Greer (talk) 01:28, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Musical settings

This section is entirely too long, with too many examples of no clear relevance or notability. Simply giving a song or album that title does not make it relevant. I am going to begin removing some of them. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 16:00, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Estates Satire

What is "estates satire"? It is used casually in the article introduction; I think it is safe to assume that most people are unfamiliar with the phrase. 74.107.124.65 (talk) 02:04, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Chaucer is the most commonly recognized example of estates satire. Here's a reliable resource: https://www.sfsu.edu/~medieval/complaintlit/estates_intro.html Dauguy (talk) 14:27, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Danse Macabre in all the languages

Is there any reason why the title appears translated in so many languages, right in the lead sentence? It's not "variously called" Dansul Morţii or Mrtvaški ples in English speaking countries. This makes no sense so I'll suggest removing them. If the French phrase is commonly used in English speaking countries it should stay, but the rest in my opinion should be removed. Laurent (talk) 08:02, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

The Totentanz of Metnitz

A question, perhaps trivial but pertinent:

"The Totentanz of Metnitz, for example, shows how a pope crowned with his mitre is being led into Hell by the dancing Death."

I don't see anything in the photo indicating that the pope is in fact "being led into Hell." Being led into the grave, or into the land of darkness historically called Sheol, does not necessarily mean that Hell follows. Is it possible that "into the grave" or "into the land of the dead" might be more accurate? — NicholasNotabene (talk) 02:18, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

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Question

To whoever is reading this,

I have one question: I'm planning on making an English translation template on the article's subject's name (I'm basically going to make something like this: "English: Dance of Death". However, the article says that the English translation of Danse Macabre is also used instead of Danse Macabre itself. Once I put in the Eng. translation template, people might think that it's just a translation, but it's not. It's also an alternative name for Danse Macabre, according to the article. Is there a possible method where I can put in the translation template and somehow also note that the translation is also an alternative name for Danse Macabre? Thanks. Hope somebody replies soon. —24.5.45.46 (talk) 02:06, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

What is being said here?

" The effect was both frivolous, and terrifying; beseeching its audience to react emotionally. " the sentence seems incomplete or stands in an irrelevant place in the text. Atakhanli (talk) 06:49, 9 January 2023 (UTC)